Walk the walls and gates of Birdoswald fort

Walk the stretch of Hadrian's Wall east from the fort towards Harrow's Scar

Find where the turf wall and the later stone wall diverge

Look down into the Irthing gorge from the fort platform

Birdoswald sits above the Irthing gorge on the stretch where Hadrian's Wall was first built of turf and later replaced in stone, so both lines can be traced on the ground. The fort walls, gates and granaries survive above the river.

Birdoswald: The Turf Wall and the Longest Standing Stretch

Carlisle and Birdoswald

Seven nights along Hadrian's Wall and what followed it, from Carlisle Castle and Birdoswald through Housesteads, Vindolanda and Corbridge to Bede's Jarrow, Warkworth, Dunstanburgh and the causeway to Lindisfarne.

Hadrian's Wall and the Edge of the Empire

Walk the Victorian garden paths up the gorge of the River Allen

Walk on up Staward Gorge through the woods

Climb to the ruins of Staward Peel, the medieval peel tower on its promontory above the gorge

Allen Banks and Staward Gorge is 194 acres of the National Trust in Northumberland, where the River Allen cuts a gorge through woodland. It was laid out in the Victorian period as a garden in the gorge, with paths running up the valley through the trees, and the woods around Staward Peel are a Site of Special Scientific Interest. At the far end, on a promontory high above the river, stand the ruins of Staward Peel, a medieval peel tower.

Allen Banks and Staward Gorge

Walk the Wall at Housesteads Roman Fort (Vercovicium), built around AD 124 on the Whin Sill crag, and find its well-preserved latrines, granaries and hospital, where the First Cohort of Tungrians garrisoned the fort from about AD 205

Visit Vindolanda just south of the Wall and see the Vindolanda tablets on loan from the British Museum, and the boxing gloves from around AD 120

Walk the stretch of Hadrian's Wall Path between Steel Rigg and Housesteads on the 84-mile National Trail, opened in 2003

Stop at Sycamore Gap, the dip in the Wall where the tree that stood there was felled in September 2023

The central stretch of Hadrian's Wall runs along the crags of the Whin Sill, and Housesteads, Vercovicium, built around AD 124, is the fort on top of it, with its latrines, granaries and hospital still laid out; from about AD 205 the First Cohort of Tungrians held it. Just south of the Wall, Vindolanda's museum shows a selection of the Vindolanda tablets on loan from the British Museum — more than 1,700 of these ink letters on wood have been found, and they were the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain — and a pair of boxing gloves from around AD 120. The Hadrian's Wall Path, a National Trail since 2003, runs along the crags past Sycamore Gap, where the famous tree was felled in September 2023.

Hadrian's Wall: Housesteads, Vindolanda and Sycamore Gap

Find the 15th-century carvings in the keep, long called the prisoners' carvings but now thought to be the work of bored guards

Go into Carlisle Cathedral, founded as an Augustinian priory

Visit Tullie, formerly Tullie House, for Hadrian's Wall and the Border Reivers

Carlisle Castle was begun under William Rufus and its keep dates from between 1122 and 1135 — one of only about a hundred tower keeps in the country. Mary, Queen of Scots was held here for a few months in 1568, in the Warden's Tower. The city began as the Roman settlement of Luguvalium on Hadrian's Wall and became the stronghold of the western border, and its cathedral began as an Augustinian priory church.

Carlisle: The Border Castle and Mary's Prison

Join a public stargazing event at Kielder Observatory, opened in 2008 in the Northumberland Dark Sky Park

Drive or cycle around Kielder Water, the UK's largest man-made lake by capacity, opened in 1982

Hike in the Kielder Forest, the largest working forest in England, from Kielder Castle

See Cat Cairn, James Turrell's Kielder Skyspace

Kielder Water, opened in 1982, is the largest man-made lake in the UK by capacity, and the Kielder Forest around it the largest working forest in England. They are part of the Northumberland International Dark Sky Park, and on Black Fell above the water Kielder Observatory, opened on 25 April 2008, runs public stargazing nights. Near Kielder Castle is James Turrell's Kielder Skyspace, Cat Cairn.

Kielder: The Observatory and the Dark Sky Park

Walk the fort and find the gates that opened north of the Wall

Go down to the fort's baths by the North Tyne

Look across the river to the abutments of the Roman bridge

See John Clayton's collection in the 1890s museum

Chesters, the Roman Cilurnum, is thought to be the best-preserved cavalry fort on Hadrian's Wall. It was built across the Wall with its walls projecting north and three of its main gates opening on that side, so the cavalry could ride out fast. It guarded the bridge that carried the Military Way over the North Tyne, whose massive abutments still stand across the river; the fort's baths are on the riverbank close to it. The site museum was built in the 1890s for John Clayton's collection from the fort and elsewhere along the Wall.

Chesters: The Cavalry Fort on the Wall

Find out where Dere Street crossed the Stanegate

Coria, two and a half miles south of Hadrian's Wall, stood where Dere Street, the great road north, met the Tyne and the Stanegate, the first east–west frontier line to Carlisle. A fort was built here around AD 84 as part of the Stanegate system, and it grew into the most northerly town in the Roman Empire. The Vindolanda tablets show that locals just called it Coria. English Heritage looks after the excavated town and its site museum.

Corbridge: The Most Northerly Town in the Roman Empire

Watch the cheesemakers from the viewing gallery at the Wensleydale Creamery (cheese isn't made every day)

Look into the Buttertubs beside the pass road

Walk to Hardraw Force, a single 100ft drop claimed as England's highest unbroken waterfall above ground

Visit the Dales Countryside Museum in the old station at Hawes

Hawes is the market town at the head of Wensleydale, where the creamery has made Wensleydale cheese since 1897 and the Dales Countryside Museum tells the story of the dale. The road north to Thwaite and Muker climbs past the Buttertubs, limestone potholes 20m deep beside the tarmac, said to be where farmers lowered butter to keep it cool on the way to market.